Unflappable
by zoeller
Summary: AU: Dino Cavallone is a dead man. Or would be if he'd actually DIE. Unfortunately for the angel tasked with collecting his soul, Dino narrowly misses death again and again, and Hibari comes closer to losing his wings with each passing day. D18.
1. Chapter 1

AN: My first KHR fic! It's very different, so I hope you like it. Concrit is welcomed, as is any form of feedback.

* * *

Routine was a dirty word. Dino had always thought so, anyway, and he figured that was all that mattered. He'd looked at life as one big adventure, with all the twists and turns necessary to keep it, well, _lively_. So when his father kicked the bucket and left his billion dollar production company to his son, Dino had seen it as just another way to keep things interesting.

"The meeting's in an hour," Romario's voice told him. The message was from about half an hour previous, long enough that it didn't surprise Dino that another message was on its tail, the voicemail blinking a bright red _2_.

"Boss, do you need a ride? Please, god, tell me you're at least awake. _Call me when you get this_." Ramario sounded so exasperated, the same tone he'd used when Dino was just the boss' son.

Dino ran a hand through his hair and looked at the clock. Half an hour. He could make it if he walked fast. No sense in calling for a car at this point.

He sent Romario a text—there was an apology stuck in at the end of it, too—and shrugged his blazer on, tied his dress shoes a neat bow-knot, and grabbed the suitcase sitting at the end of his bed.

Routine was a dirty word, but it was about all he had anymore.

He shouldn't be walking. He was hugely famous, was in charge of an entire industry, and he had all the money to support that claim. Romario was always on him about taking the proper precautions, but Dino wasn't about to give up his morning walk.

Routine, he thought again as he locked the door behind him.

It was a three block walk to the office. He could practically do it with his eyes closed—not that he would, what with his propensity to run into things and fall on his face, but that was neither here nor there.

One block into his walk—his pace was rather quicker than normal, and his button-up was beginning to stick to his back between the morning humidity and the body heat from the packed streets—and his phone was vibrating in his pocket, an insistent thrumming.

The caller ID read Romario. Dino bit back a curse and answered the call.

"You have ten minutes, boss." Romario sounded grave. "Longchamp isn't good with waiting." Ah, that. Yes, Longchamp did tend to be easily distracted.

"Sorry, Romario." Why was it that everyone seemed to walk slower when he was in a hurry? Certainly, it would be rude to run a pregnant woman down just to get to work in time, but Dino was practically bouncing on his toes looking for a way around the cluster of people determined to slow him down. "I'm kind of stuck right now."

"We'll stall him." A long sigh. "Try to get here soon."

"Give him the print of the proposal first. Tell him to orient himself with the material before I get there."

He snapped his phone closed and tucked it away in his pocket just in time for the crosswalk to go red and traffic to start up again. The group he was stuck with was small, at least, just a woman and a few men in suits, none of them aware enough to bother looking at each other. He wondered if they recognized him and found that he preferred the thought that they didn't.

"Sir?" A hand tugged at his sleeve.

"Eh?" Just behind him stood a little boy, maybe five. In front of him, the light changed: the crosswalk was safe for pedestrians.

"Please," the boy said, tugging Dino toward him. "My mommy, she said she needs to talk to you over there." Where _over there_ was, the boy didn't clarify. He just pulled Dino along until they were walking toward one of the shops, the crosswalk left behind them.

It was then that it happened.

A screech, a series of screams, the sound of a sickening crunch, the roar of a crowd—Dino was dragged backward by a sudden surge of people going _away_ from the streets just as a car, seemingly out of control, jumped the curb and slammed into a nearby pole, taking all the people standing at the crosswalk as collateral.

Dino stumbled, his feet catching him up and sending him sprawling face first into the pavement, the smell of smoke and something sickly and blood-like carrying upward in the air.

He looked briefly at the crosswalk, saw the trail of—of _people_, of what once was people, leading to the smoking wreckage and felt his throat catch, a lump of something that tasted vaguely of his breakfast threatening to force its way up.

He was sitting with his back to some store wall, staring blankly ahead with the realization _holy shit, I was just standing there, that was almost me_ ringing through his head, the worst type of earworm.

It seemed strange, then, that he'd even bothered to notice the man who came to stand next to him. Through the chaos, through the sound of sirens drawing closer and morning traffic crunching to a halt of bleating horns and expletives, the man stood still as a statue, seemingly untouched by the disaster, and looked down at Dino with an expression akin to irritation or disappointment.

Somehow, sitting on the pavement, his cell phone vibrating ceaselessly in his pocket, Dino found that after all was said and done he rather missed routine when it took its leave.

* * *

He did not make it to the meeting.

That was expected, though, and Romario had really already called the whole thing off by the time Dino had gotten his head together enough to call in to the office, _I think I need a car sent after all_ in a voice Romario later said was as close to a dying whisper as he'd ever heard from his boss.

The whole damn day was trying. Dino was glad to see it over.

It made sense, he figured later, sprawled out on his couch, channel surfing. All he'd been able to think of that day was that he'd been so close to dying. The stupid thing was, the first thought his mind had processed after the accident was _my god, it's way too early in the morning to die_, as though that even made a difference. He couldn't remember what he'd been doing before, what had made him walk away from the crosswalk, but a nagging feeling in his gut told him he'd been spared.

Three days later, Dino was feeling less certain of himself.

Since that accident on the way to work, he'd taken to having Romario drive him in the mornings, something his assistant had been pleased to do. He thought that after a few days, everything would settle down. The news programs would stop airing about it, his mind would stop buzzing with it, and his routine would fall back into place.

On the day following the accident, a gas leak sprung in his house. He'd fallen asleep and would have never woken up again, had his neighbor's dog not escaped from its home to his yard and his neighbor not chased after it, smelling the leak.

On the day after _that_, Romario had decided his boss would stay in a hotel while the house was checked for any other issues. An electrical plug had blown a fuse and caught fire in the bathroom of his suite, and if it hadn't been for one of the service clerks mistakenly bringing a message meant for the floor below to Dino's suite, he wouldn't have ever checked out. He only found out after the fact, but the emergency sprinklers on his floor were all malfunctioning that day.

By the third day, Dino had taken to sleeping in his office, Romario and a host of security guards taking turns watching over him.

Death, it seemed, was out to get him.

Dino might have let the incident with the crosswalk go, and he might have even written off the gas leak as a streak of bad luck. But the hotel, too? Coincidences had a limit, and Dino was really drawing the line at three near-death experiences in a row.

If only, he thought, casting another wary glance at the door, expecting the grim reaper or something equally ridiculous to pop out and cleanly slice his head from his neck, if only he could just go back to his normal days.

He'd never complain about the monotony again.

* * *

The book changed every day. It was ridiculous, a clear violation of the order of things, and if Hibari hadn't damn well seen it for himself, he'd refuse to believe such a thing was possible.

But there it was, written plainly for him to see:

DINO CAVALLONE, AGE 27. DEATH BY TOXIC EXPOSURE TO CARBON MONOXIDE. 08 APRIL 20XX.

Had it been any other person in his Guide Book, Hibari wouldn't think twice. But in the three days since he'd received his assignment, Dino Cavallone's method and date of death had changed once per day. Each day, Hibari would wait at the prescribed scene, and each day, Dino Cavallone would narrowly miss an imminent death.

Something was very wrong here, Hibari thought with increasing irritation. The idiot just _would not die_.

It was unheard of. Preposterous. And yet, it was happening.

Hibari wouldn't stand for it. This was a direct violation of—of life itself! Humans didn't just _reschedule_ their death dates, and angels certainly didn't fail at collecting souls.

No, this was something else entirely, and the more Hibari thought on it, the more he felt like finding the bastard human who dared to throw his schedule off and biting the fool to death himself.

The rendezvous time was in roughly ten minutes, but the collection agent was often early. He, at least, was punctual, and for that, Hibari rarely ever tried to kill him.

"Yo!" The too-cheerful greeting, the ridiculous get-up: Yamamoto Takeshi walked into the small café down the street from Cavallone Enterprises with a flourish, his million watt smile drawing the attention of all who surveyed him.

Hibari sat by a window, his darkest scowl fixed upon his face.

"Oh," Yamamoto said. "I guess this is another no-show, huh?" He took the seat opposite Hibari, ordering an espresso to go and never dropping the grin. "Too bad! How long do you think you're going to be stuck here? I heard there's going to be an epidemic in Germany next month. Your name was on the list to handle it. Think I should pass the word on to Reborn to find someone else?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Hibari snapped. "I'll handle this in plenty of time. Who's going to be stuck on Earth for a month, you idiot?"

Yamamoto whistled low. "Touchy. I guess this isn't going well? Haha, what a bummer!"

Hibari was going to kill him. No, he was going to _dismember_ the useless fool and hide his various parts across the globe, never to be pieced together again!

"You're thinking something terrible," Yamamoto observed. "I can tell, because your mouth does that twitchy thing. Oh! It did it again! Haha, you must be really angry about all this!"

"Yamamoto Takeshi," Hibari began, voice low and promising pain, "if you do not cease your senseless rambling immediately, I will _obliterate_ you."

At that, Yamamoto's grin only widened. "Haha, great! That sounds more like the Hibari I know and—well, know! I'll come back tomorrow, then?"

The waitress came by again, setting Yamamoto's espresso down and fluttering her eyelashes. Hibari gave her a flat look. Yamamoto didn't seem to notice.

"Tomorrow will be fine," Hibari said stiffly. "I'll have his soul by then."

"If not, you can just keep trying," Yamamoto said cheerfully. "It's not like you don't have an eternity! Haha!" Of course the idiot was still cracking jokes like that.

Hibari left the collection agent at the table—for his foolishness, Yamamoto would have to handle the bill—muttering darkly as he went. "New wings," he said, disgusted. "Two hundred years and the novelty still hasn't worn off."


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Thanks to everyone who reviewed/favorited/alerted! It's really nice to see. I look forward to hearing what you think about this part!

* * *

"You should take a few days off."

"Maybe."

"Get some rest, get out of the city."

"Romario, you sound like a mother." Dino laughed, balling up his latest attempt at a proposal draft and tossing it in a wide arch to the waste bin across the room. He missed.

Romario gave him a look crossed between exasperation and concern as he stooped over to grab the wad of paper and drop it in the bin. "You're a mess," he said. "More than usual."

"I'm not _usually_ a mess!"

"Boss," Romario said, long-suffering, "you came out of the womb a mess."

Well.

The days were rushing past in an unsettling manner. The unsettling part, of course, remained the fact that Dino was still alive when someone, somewhere, very clearly didn't want him to be. The near-misses were piling up so high that two weeks past the first incident with the crosswalk, Dino was beginning to think someone was actively trying to kill him.

He was a good person. He gave to charity, he didn't cut the Christmas bonuses for his company like those other bastards did, he was generally a nice guy—Dino spent hours turning the reasons over in his head. Who would want to kill _him_?

When he brought it up with Romario, his assistant had actually laughed at him and said something to the effect of _the only thing trying to kill you is your piss-poor luck, boss _which, yeah, okay, that seemed more likely. But the point remained that not a single day of the last two weeks had passed without Dino getting a good, long glimpse at the light at the end of the tunnel.

Just what the hell was going on?

"I was thinking we could go to America for a while." Romario was still talking. Dino leaned on his hand, elbows propped up on his desk. "Or Japan! You liked it the last time. We could go to one of those hot springs."

"No point," Dino said. "The plane'll probably crash on the way over."

"We could take a boat."

"I can't swim. That's like being surrounded by death. Death from all sides!" Right, so that sounded kind of hysterical, but Dino doubted anyone would blame him.

No, as far as he was concerned, the best and most obvious response to this—whatever this was—was to stay indoors and try to move as little as possible.

"The repairs are done for the house." Romario gave him a pointed look, the kind that used to send him scurrying to do whatever his babysitter-cum-assistant suggested. "Go home, boss. At least do that much."

"My house is trying to kill me, too," Dino insisted. "I'm never going back."

"Boss…" Romario pulled his glasses off, wiping them clean on his shirt, a nervous habit decades old. "Look, you can't continue like this. I'm worried. The guy who waters the office plants is even worried, for god's sake!" He perched his glasses on the bridge of his nose again and fixed his boss, the boy he'd known since childhood, with a stern look. "You've got two choices: go to your house or go to mine. Either way, you're sure as hell not staying here."

He certainly knew how to make a point. Dino looked at the office couch, at the sheets folded haphazardly over the arm, the pile of clothes he'd requested from home sitting at the side of his desk—right, yes, he was a complete mess.

Mess or not, though, _someone was trying to kill him_.

"Your house," he said after a few moments' silence, drawing the words out petulantly.

"My house it is," Romario agreed. "After you eat." He pulled out his phone and ordered for a car. "The usual place?"

Dino thought of all the things that could go wrong—_a fucking car wreck, the restaurant could explode, food poisoning, my god, it's like walking through a field of land mines_—and sighed.

"Boss, please stop hitting your head on the desk."

* * *

Dying was like falling. It was the sort of thing Dino expected from a novel, but as the car veered sharply to the left and flipped, everything seemed to kick into slow motion, sound disappearing down some unknown funnel.

The car landed right-side-up, a miracle in and of itself. Dino was alive and breathing, could feel his hands, could wiggle his toes in his shoes.

But he'd chosen to drive.

In the passenger's seat—well. There wasn't much there. Just a twisted mess of metal and flesh, most of it from the car that had smashed into them.

He didn't even know the man who'd chosen to accompany him, only that he was a new hire. Only that Romario trusted him enough to drive with the boss while he went ahead in a different car to arrange things at the restaurant.

Something was wrong, very wrong, and as Dino blinked in slow succession, something wet and warm dripping down his forehead, he felt that he was missing something.

Dino faded in and out: he went from the car to outside, laying on something, with lights in his face and a voice in his ear, "He's responding," in and out of reality faster than his mind could process.

Later, at the hospital, when his head was right again and the world had stopped spinning, Dino would remember a man with dark features standing behind the emergency medics with a deeply disapproving scowl as though to say _you just keep fucking up, don't you?_

There was something important, there. He just didn't know what.

* * *

"Not that I'm complaining," Yamamoto said, accepting the small white bottle with casual indifference, "but this is kind of the wrong guy."

Hibari refused to dignify that with a response. Instead, he shoved his Guide Book at Yamamoto's face. All he needed was the collection agent's signature, and he could get on with his day.

Something needed to be done about Dino Cavallone.

"Right, right." Yamamoto tucked the encapsulated soul away and pulled out a pen, jotting his name down on the book. The ink stirred on the page, swirling into a spiral with that of the deceased's name and death information before finally dissipating into nothing. "Haha, I really can't believe you're still here, though!"

"Please leave," Hibari said stiffly. He was irritated enough that he had to maintain a human façade just to attend dealings with the idiot agent, but the surge of anger he felt at the reminder of his failure was enough to crack the illusion.

Yamamoto's eyes went wide, and he quickly looked around. "Er, Hibari, come on—if you spread your wings here, we're kind of going to be in trouble!" That nervous laughter was not soothing Hibari's ire.

"I hate this planet," Hibari said, "and these worthless humans."

"Oh, is this kind of like you throwing a hissy fit? Haha, you know, Gokudera actually said something like—"

Whatever it was that Gokudera said, Hibari wasn't going to hear because he chose that moment to slam his fist into Yamamoto's stomach and watch the collection agent double over in pain with grim satisfaction.

"Tomorrow," he said over Yamamoto's wheezing agony. "I'll have his soul by tomorrow." And he would, even if it meant killing the lucky idiot himself.

It was time for a bit of casual observation.

* * *

It was a car wreck, wasn't it? Dino woke up in the hospital, a bandage wrapped around his head and Romario asleep in the chair next to him, and the first thing he thought was _I totally called it._

Maybe there _was_ something wrong with him.

"Romario," he said, or tried to. It actually came out more like "Rommagghhi," between the cotton-dry feeling in his mouth and what was likely the effect of painkillers.

But his assistant woke up like he'd been doused in water, jumping out of the chair. "Boss! Just—don't go back to sleep," he held out his hands. "I'm getting the doctor, so just _stay awake_!" He was out of the room before Dino could trouble himself to nod.

It didn't take long for Romario to return with the doctor and a nurse. He still felt like he was drifting in and out of reality—though he managed to catch something about a concussion, which really did explain a lot—and so it caught him by surprise when he saw it.

Or rather, him.

A very familiar, very dark face—the disapproving stranger. It took a moment for Dino to place him, but the memory came like a shock of light, this man always being there, leaning over the medic's shoulder, scowling down at him—

"We'll need to keep him another twenty-four hours just to be safe," the doctor was saying. The stranger in the doorway paid no mind to the people in the room. He simply walked right in—though he somehow got stuck in the doorway?

Around the time the man started _tugging his wings into the room_ Dino started wondering just how strong those painkillers were.

"He has a lot of work," Romario's voice filtered through his consciousness.

Did neither of them notice the man in the doorway? He'd gotten inside by then, and his obscenely large wings—black and feathery and clearly evil if Dino knew his horror films—were folded neatly against his back. No one said a word about it. It was like they couldn't see him.

Dino blinked several times hoping the apparition would disappear, but to no avail. The man stood at the foot of his bed and glared at him.

"Um," Dino said.

"Ah, Mr. Cavallone, are you feeling well enough to speak?"

Speak? Possibly. But he was also apparently hallucinating.

"I'm okay," he said. The man at the end of the bed only glared harder, if that was possible. Dino wondered for a moment if this man was actually trying to kill him, but then he remembered that hallucinations couldn't actually hurt him.

Probably.

But if he'd seen the man before—and the more he thought about it, the more he remembered the man's face from each and every accident he'd had the last two weeks, and holy shit, that had to be a bad sign, oh god—

"He's starting to hyperventilate," the doctor said. "Check his vitals!"

Dino was about to say something—likely to the effect of _someone please knock me out again_—when the man at the end of the bed spoke.

He drew himself up impressively, his winds shuddering, as he fixed Dino with a look of utter loathing. "You're worthless," the man declared. "You can't even die properly."

_Oh my god_, Dino thought dazedly. _My own hallucination is criticizing me_.

To his right, the doctor was ordering another medication and Romario was standing against the wall looking grave. Through the entire procession, the man at the end of the bed kept watch, anger rolling off him in waves.

Dino rather disliked the idea of such a thing coming from his mind.

* * *

Hibari couldn't stand looking at the fool any longer. The doctor injected something into him to knock him out, and Hibari watched with the last of his thinning patience as Dino sunk beneath a chemical wave of drowsiness.

"I don't have time for this," he said to himself. "The idiot won't die without me watching. I'll come back tomorrow."

He turned on his heel and walked out of the room, pausing in the doorway to arrange his wings. Then he turned to get one last look at his assignment—

…who was staring right back at him.

Hibari was unused to humans looking at him. Certainly, there was no way Dino Cavallone could see him. Humans weren't capable of seeing him in this form, not unless they fit very specific requirements.

To be sure, mostly to humor himself, Hibari walked back into the room.

Dino's eyes followed him. Glazed over though they were, they were definitely fixed on Hibari.

He took a step away, backing out of the doorway. Dino's gaze carried after him the entire way.

Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, Hibari considered that there just might be something very wrong with this case.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Thanks to everyone who reviewed/favorited/alterted! You guys are the best. I seem to be on a roll with writing this at a fast pace, so, er, here's the next chapter! I look forward to hearing what you thought about it.

* * *

Humans were simple creatures with predictable reactions. They were born weak, lived weak lives, and died pitiful deaths. That was the truth of things, the cycle that Hibari had watched over for centuries.

Dino Cavallone's blatant disregard for this truth disturbed Hibari. The man was an oozing sore on the underbelly of humanity, a being that did not follow the rules. His very existence disrupted order, and Hibari had never been one to tolerate such a thing.

At exactly one minute past midnight following the car accident, the Guide Book changed again:

DINO CAVALLONE, AGE 27. DEATH BY DOWNING (ASPHYXIATION). 23 APRIL 20XX.

Hibari snarled as the ink spun and swirled into place, forming the words. The Book hadn't been right about anything concerning Cavallone so far. He wasn't about to think the damn thing would start now.

Slamming the book closed and tucking it into the pocket of his dark overcoat, Hibari stepped out of the alleyway and started walking to the hospital. In his spare time—a new concept for him—he'd taken to wandering the streets within about six blocks of the hospital. Rarely did he ever stay in a place for more than a few days. His increasing familiarity with this area of Italy was beginning to wear on him. The last incident that had left him stranded was a multiple soul affair in the mid-western United States. A father had taken his family hostage and killed them off one by one. He'd gone straight to Hell, of course, but Hibari had been forced to wait out the carnage until all three children, the man's wife, and finally the man himself were dead. He'd spent six days wandering a corn field out of sheer boredom.

But this—this familiarity was something else. And really, he was getting tired of that idiot of a collection agent dropping in unexpectedly to _cheer him on_, as though he was a rookie gatherer. The bastard knew full well that Hibari had been working this circle for the last six hundred years, and that condescending attitude oozing in optimism was just going to get him dismembered if Yamamoto kept it up.

He checked his watch: a few minutes after four in the afternoon. Foot traffic was picking up.

Hibari stationed himself outside of the hospital and spread his wings their full span, all six feet of it. Humans couldn't see him like that, but what little sense they had drove them to walk around him. He disliked crowding, after all, and would go great lengths to avoid it.

There were still about ten minutes until Cavallone would be released from the hospital. Hibari stood, staring idly out at nothing, occasionally noticing a young child staring where he stood a bit too fixedly. Children were much more sensitive than adults. When one came close, arm outstretched as though to grab at his feathers, Hibari gave one violent flap of his wings and zeroed in on the child with narrowed eyes: it burst into tears and ran.

Things were as they should be.

At exactly a quarter past four, Dino Cavallone stepped out the front entrance of the hospital on his assistant's arm, two men flanking them on either side, as though the man was anticipating a terrible accident.

Hibari's mouth quirked up. At least the fool could sense the pattern building around him.

He planned to follow him, to observe Cavallone, and to find out for himself if the man perhaps had some extrasensory abilities that allowed him to so successfully evade death. Hibari hadn't ever had a case like this—indeed, hadn't ever had a case that had even escaped death _once_. It was unheard of in his experience.

Cavallone was escorted to the road where a car waited. Hibari crossed the street quickly, intent on riding atop the car to keep his eye on his target when something froze him in place:

Cavallone was staring at him.

It was no mistake. The man had one hand on the car door, and he'd stopped right in the middle of climbing in to watch Hibari cross the street. His eyes were wide, his mouth pursed until his lips were a white line. He paid no mind to the way the wind whipped his shaggy hair into his eyes. He simply didn't move at all, as though even breathing would cause him to lose sight of what he was so determinedly observing.

Curious, bemused, Hibari opened his wings and closed them in quick succession.

Cavallone blinked in response and jerked upright.

There was no doubting it: the man could see him.

Hibari bit back a curse and abruptly took to the air, sailing up over the hospital and hearing Cavallone's startled cry disappear into the roaring air whipping past him.

The human could _see_ him.

At the hospital, the first time, he'd been convinced that perhaps Cavallone was just drugged and staring off, that it had been a mistake. But this—this was no mistake. Cavallone very clearly was aware of Hibari.

Yes, it was most definitely unheard of in his experience—but perhaps, Hibari thought, gliding back down to the ground several blocks away and folding his wings, perhaps it was not so unheard of in another gatherer's experience.

* * *

Considering everything that had gone wrong in the last two weeks, that he'd escaped with only a mild concussion as collateral damage was probably pretty impressive.

Dino pointedly did not think of the remains of his employee, twisted into the car that had collided with them—

No, no. He shook his head, which turned out to be just as big a mistake because it sent black spots flying across his vision. He had to grab Romario's arm just to stay on his feet until it passed.

"You sure you're ready to leave, boss?" Romario asked in a low voice filled with concern. "Maybe you should stay here for another day—"

"No," Dino said firmly. "I'm behind enough on work as it is. And I wanted to visit his family."

Who the 'his' of that equation was need not be asked.

Romario looked uncomfortable. Then, "You know, you can't blame yourself for that."

Like hell he couldn't. Dino didn't say it, but Romario must have seen it on his face.

"Boss," he tried again. "The wreck wasn't your fault. The other car crashed into _you_."

"That's assuming the other car wasn't trying to kill me in the first place," he muttered, disheartened. "I'm like a magnet for disaster, Romario. I'm probably going to get you killed one of these days." The thought made him queasy in a way he knew he couldn't blame on his head: what if he _did_ get Romario killed? Hell, what if anyone else at all died because of this—this bizarre occurrence? The universe seemed to be conspiring against him, and it was more than willing to claim anyone and anything else that got in its way as collateral.

"Don't think like that," was all Romario had to say on the matter, his voice gruff. "Come on, the car's waiting."

They stepped out of the hospital, and the guard Romario prepared moved in step with them. The car was already parked at the curb to pick them up, and Dino, after briefly scanning their surroundings, breathed a sigh of relief when it didn't look like anything was going to jump out and attack him.

One could never be too careful.

But all thoughts of safety, of the possibility of perhaps things returning to normal soon, disappeared the moment he caught sight of That Man.

He was crossing the street, walking very purposefully toward Dino as he tried to climb into the car. Romario tried to say something to him, but Dino couldn't _move_, not with that man in his sights, still with that same darkly disapproving look, with those large wings poised impressively behind him.

Then the man froze.

They both had, really. But something flashed across the man's face too quickly for Dino to decipher. He flapped his wings several times—and then he took off.

Later, Dino would find himself obsessed with this moment, with the oddly beautiful visual of the man's wings spreading open and pushing him off the ground with a powerful gust. He was actually, really _flying_.

The startled cry that ripped its way out of Dino's throat brought reality crashing back down around him in the form of Romario grabbing his shoulders and giving him a shake.

"Boss," he was saying over and over. "Boss, are you all right?" Panic was rich in his voice.

"Yeah," Dino said after a moment, still staring at the empty space that had once held the winged man. "Just—just fine."

Romario practically pushed him into the car before climbing in as well, fussing over Dino like a mother over her ailing child. Looking at his assistant's face, at any of the guards, it was very clear that they hadn't seen the man.

Was he real? Was this some side effect of the concussion? Or maybe of the painkillers? Was stress cracking Dino's mind wide opened and leaving him vulnerable to hallucinations?

There wasn't any answer, not that he could find.

"I had the guest room set up," Romario was saying as the car pulled away from the curb. His voice was soothing, likely intended as a distraction. Dino had never felt more thankful for the man than in that moment.

"I think I need to sleep," he said.

"Sure, boss. Whatever you want."

* * *

When Hibari put the call in, he expected to find a waiting period.

What he got was an asshole with nothing better to do.

Shamal was something of a legend in their realm, an angel who had received his wings some odd two thousand years before and had gone on to lose them no less than eight times for indiscretions that usually involved mortal women. He always got his wings back, but only so the betting pool as to when he'd lose them again could reset.

The man had no respect for the natural order of things. Hibari loathed him.

"So it's you," Shamal said, ashing his cigarette into the pond. A duck ruffled its wings at him, and he laughed. "Some predicament you're gotten yourself in."

Angels weren't of a single type. Some were weak, some were strong, some did nothing but sit behind desks in the other realm, and some spent their eternity keeping demons in line in the underworld. Whatever type Shamal could be classified as—and to be sure, classifying him was a nearly impossible task—he managed to exude an aura of age and power and yet at the same time held the air of a common drunk.

"There is no predicament." Hibari settled the façade of humanity around him like a well-worn jacket and stepped up to Shamal's side.

It was getting dark. The park was about three blocks away from the hospital, and it was mostly empty later in the day. Not ten minutes after Hibari had requested the opinion of a specialist, Shamal had returned a hastily typed message about meeting in the park. Perhaps for the solitude, that's what he'd assumed, but on his way there, Hibari passed a street that intersected with the beginning of the red light district.

Solitude. Sure.

"No predicament?" Shamal gave him a sideways glance. "Sure, kid. No predicament. But for a second, let's assume you're not the biggest prick on this side of reality and say you fucked up somewhere along the line, okay? Just answer me this—who's the target?"

Hibari seethed. He already had to put up with that fucking ridiculous collection agent, and now he had to take Shamal's ridiculing? If he hadn't already made the mistake of crossing the man once, he'd happily separate the bastard's head from the rest of him.

But that was a mistake Hibari would only make once.

"Dino Cavallone," he answered flatly. "Age twenty-seven, the CEO of—"

"Oh, shit, you must be kidding." Shamal groaned, slapping his hand over his eyes. "I know that name. I hear women going on about him all the time—rich young CEO. Sorry, I made a mistake."

"You made a mistake?" Hibari's eyebrow rose nearly to his hairline.

"I only deal with human-spirit interactions when it involves women," Shamal said. "So this isn't really my thing." He was already backing away, the human illusion flickering in preparation of dispelling.

"_No_," Hibari hissed, throwing caution to the wind and grabbing the bastard by the throat. Shamal spluttered and dropped his cigarette. "_You _invited me here. You will assist me_. You will_."

Shamal knocked his hands away and coughed, shooting Hibari a dirty look that was still half-humoring. "You really are the worst," he said. "Fine, fuck it, I'll give you some information, but that's it. Once I'm gone, you find some other specialist to hold your hand."

Condescending asshole though he was, Shamal still knew his stuff. Hibari fired out the scenario, not leaving out a single detail of Dino Cavallone's bizarre luck.

"It's not really common," Shamal agreed, lighting another cigarette. "Not impossible, though. You say he's been in the Book for two weeks now?"

Hibari nodded.

"Hasn't disappeared from it at all?"

"The name changes at midnight the following day," Hibari said, "but it never fades from the page."

Shamal hummed thoughtfully. "Right. So, look at it this way—names only appear in the Guide Book in preparation of death, right? So the moment a human's name appears, that human is classified as near death. Near death humans sort of… exist outside of either reality. They aren't fully in this world," he waved a hand around, "but they aren't in the other realm yet, either. It's like a loophole, if you think about. Being in between gives them an edge. That's the shit you hear about in the tabloids, people seeing angels when they survive coming close to death and all that. Trouble is, it's only supposed to be a short time. Maybe a few minutes at most. Your boy," he nodded toward the Guide Book Hibari had in his hand, "has been trapped there for—two weeks, was it?"

Understanding settled over Hibari, a terrible chill. "So he _can_ see me," he muttered.

"If this keeps up, you won't be the only thing he sees," Shamal warned. "There's another case you might be interested in—very similar to this one. That guy, though…" Shamal laughed without humor. "He absorbed spiritual energy like a sponge, and it got to the point where he wasn't even human. Sound familiar?"

Something about it _did_ ring a bell in Hibari's mind.

"It was before your time, but you're probably familiar with the name," Shamal continued, an odd half-smile on his face. "Mukuro."

Hibari froze. "Mukuro," he echoed, rage building in his gut at the name alone. "The angel who guards the path to Hell?" The smug bastard who took every opportunity to make Hibari's eternity as close to Hell as he could?

"The one and only," Shamal said. "Skeevy bastard, isn't he? The trouble with that one is that he never actually died. He just—stopped being human. Reborn had to intervene."

"There are records of this?"

Shamal dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out under his boot. "I'll forward them to you," Shamal said. "But if anyone finds out, you better leave my name out of it."

"Fine."

Shamal didn't stick around long after that. The conversation seemed to throw him off balance, and after mumbling something about _refilling my soul_ he wandered off toward the nearest bar.

Hibari stayed. He threw off the illusion of humanity and watched the last of the sunlight fade beyond the horizon, a sickening feeling churning in his gut.

* * *

It was close to midnight when Hibari finally decided to check on his assignment. He was no longer holding onto any hope that the Guide Book would for once prove correct on Cavallone's method of death. He was no longer holding on to any hope of anything that involved the man, and it was thanks to that resigned mentality that he didn't fly into a rage upon arriving at Cavallone's assistant's condo.

Dino Cavallone was meant to die by drowning, the Guide Book had said. Hibari had read between the lines and figured he was meant to pass out in the bath or something similar, probably due to the head wound. When he arrived at the condo, he found that a water main had busted, rendering all plumbing inside half a kilometer of the condo useless. There was no bath to drown in.

Once again, Dino Cavallone had escaped his fate, and once again, Hibari found himself at a complete loss.

* * *

"You'll be all right?" The concern was evident in Romario's voice even over the phone. Dino could picture the look on his face, the furrow in his brow deepening as the corners of his mouth drew down.

"I'm fine," he said, nearly laughing. "I was fine the last three times you called, too."

"Things have been weird. You can't really blame me. You wouldn't believe how many people have stopped by just to ask how you are. Longchamp called, for god's sake!"

"Thoughtful," Dino said, and shoved half a roll into his mouth. Romario had called for delivery and had, oddly enough, called Dino's cell phone the moment lunch arrived.

"Guido's going to stop over in about half an hour."

"Ah, Guido. Tell him to bring my laptop, okay? I should get caught up."

"You should _relax_."

"Your house is boring," Dino said, polishing off the roll. "Just tell him."

"Fine, fine."

He snapped the phone closed and set it down on the table, content with eating the rest of his lunch while he waited. Romario nearly had to be pushed out the door that morning. Dino might have preferred to have someone with him, but at the rate they were going, the company would suffer.

Everything would be fine, he'd promised. And so far, everything was.

Dino stationed himself on the balcony at the small two-seat table to eat, his feet bare and in nothing but a pair of sweatpants and a bathrobe. It was relaxing, not having to worry about keeping up appearances. Maybe Romario had been right all along. Maybe it was all just a pile of coincidences, and stress was exacerbating it all.

Just take some time off, that's what he needed. Relax, let off some steam, try to readjust his mental state. He could go back to work in a week, and everything would go right back to normal.

It was certainly a pleasing thought, and Dino would have been more than happy to believe it had it not been for another one of those odd hallucinations.

The winged man was absent. Rather than him, what he saw was a young man, maybe just at the end of his teenage years, walking slowly down the sidewalk that ran just under Romario's balcony. He would have looked completely normal, like any other kid, had it not been for the tail.

His tail was like a dog's, long and curved upward, wagging back and forth with an excitement the kid's face didn't reflect. He was walking with purpose, like he knew just where he was supposed to be going, and his mouth was open, his tongue lolling out and to the side—really, it was like looking at a dog given human form!

Dino looked at the other people on the street, at the man selling tourists goods, the cluster of businessmen walking, likely heading somewhere to a lunch meeting. None of them acknowledged the strange boy as he passed. Instead, it appeared that they were looking right through him as if he wasn't there.

And the boy, for his part, kept walking at his slow but sure pace, occasionally lifting his head and smelling the air, his blond head bobbing up and down. As he passed directly under the balcony, Dino got a good look at his face. He had an interesting scar, a thick line crossing horizontally over the bridge of his nose, and his teeth were sharp and canine-like. He didn't acknowledge Dino at all, nor did he seem bothered enough to look at any of the people he passed. He just kept walking.

Dino watched him amble by, moving steadily down the street until he took a left at the end of the row of condos. Then the boy disappeared.

Not thirty seconds had passed before Dino's mind was made up. He was already out of his seat, scrambling into clothes and shoes, and running out the door before he could stop to think about the decision, his cell phone left behind on the table, ringing shrilly in the empty space of the condo.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Thanks again to everyone who read/reviewed/favorited/alerted! It means a lot :) The next update will probably be this upcoming Thursday. I'm in the midst of finals right now, so my time is kind of all over the place right now, haha. Anyway, I look forward to hearing what you think of this chapter!

* * *

As he ducked behind a trash bin and avoided the dog-like boy's eyes for the third time, Dino was willing to face the possibility that he just might have lost his mind. People were passing him on the street and giving him a wide berth as though _he_ was the feral-looking one. He wanted to shriek and point at the blond standing not five meters away—he had a fucking tail!—and demand to know why everyone seemed to think _he_ was the suspicious one.

It was offensive, Dino decided. Clearly, these people were all blind or just had no sense at all, because—

The strange boy sneezed, startling Dino out of his hysterical inner monologue just long enough to see the boy start walking again, apparently satisfied that he wasn't being followed.

It was a repeating pattern. As soon as Dino first caught up with him, the boy had noticed that something was off—perhaps he could smell something in the air? Did dogs actually smell emotions? Dino thought he'd read something like that somewhere, but it might have been a sci-fi novel or maybe just something he'd made up.

Hell, maybe he was just dreaming in the first place! That strange man with wings, the tailed punk he was stalking through the city—it was all too surreal, an Alice-in-Wonderland experience with all the terror and none of the fun. If all this amounted to a series of hallucinations, how would he know? How could he be sure the things he saw were real or fake? Was there a way to know whether something—someone?—was actually trying to kill him or if he was just projecting some suicidal fantasy?

The boy stopped again. Dino turned to the window of a nearby shop, pretending to read some sign or other—a closing sale, he noted—and listened as the boy fumbled his phone out of his pocket.

"Eh, Kakipi? That you? No, not you, you idiot girl, give Kakipi the phone! Who the hell said _you _could answer the—Kakipi?"

Huh. The boy was practically screaming into the phone. Maybe he was one of those people who just spoke louder over the phone? Dino figured they probably had some weird disconnect about not seeing the people they were speaking to and so they just raised their voices to compensate, but—

"Yes," the boy said—yelled—proudly. "I got the whole damn area down. Impressive, eh?"

Despite the boy's volume, there still wasn't a single person other than Dino who noticed him. They just stepped around him like he wasn't there, like the space he stood in was just occupied by a signpost or something and so they naturally didn't attempt to walk through it.

Dino considered grabbing the next person who walked by and asking them about the boy, but he was honest to god afraid of the answer. What would he do if they really didn't see him? That kind of confirmation, that everything really was in his head—it terrified him.

"Well, about that…" The boy's voice dropped considerably. He scratched the back of his head—_holy shit, take a look at those claws!_—and grinned, lop-sided and sheepish. "Where were we supposed to meet again?" Not half a second later, he tore the phone from his ear, and even Dino could hear the muffled rage pouring through the speaker. "Sorry, jeez, not so loud! I've got damn sensitive ears, Kakipi!"

Dino watched him nod, wincing, and then finally say his goodbyes and click the phone shut. Through the entire exchange, not a single person looked his way. When he turned and headed down the road, Dino took off after him at a slower pace, trying to seem like he wasn't following after him and feeling certain that he was failing miserably.

Then again, what did it matter? The boy didn't seem concerned about people noticing him. Did he think he was invisible? _Was_ he invisible?

Was he even real in the first place?

"Here he we go," the boy muttered—loudly. Did the guy not have control over the volume of his voice or something?

Dino tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, huddling close to a newspaper dispenser and watching the boy out of the corner of his eye. He was standing in front of a building, a brick wall, and mumbling to himself. After a moment, he reached his hand out and touched the brick. From the point where the tip of his finger connected with the wall, a black hole appeared, slowly expanding. The boy stood with his arms crossed, tapping his foot as he growled, "Fucking hurry it up, some people have things to do, you know!"

The hole spiraled wider and wider, growing until it was more like a doorway than anything else, large enough to comfortably accommodate a person.

Dino stared, his mouth hanging open, the newspaper dispenser and all thoughts of subtlety long since forgotten.

The boy, however, paid him no mind. He walked right through the hole and disappeared into whatever was on the other side, obviously used to that sort of thing. Dino stared at the empty space that once held the dog-like boy, took his time observing all the people in the area, and came to the conclusion that he was only one who saw what just happened—whatever _that_ was.

With his mind made up and determination steeling his expression, Dino walked confidently toward the portal, prepared to face whatever strange world lay beyond—

…and promptly walked face-first into solid brick.

It was just his luck, he supposed as he bounced off the wall and crashed ass-flat onto the pavement, that the people around him would suddenly have the awareness to point and laugh.

* * *

"No, Romario, I am _not_ having a nervous breakdown," Dino said for what had to be the tenth time. "I'm telling you, I saw a guy with a tail! And claws! He walked through a brick wall and—well, no, no one else really noticed him, but I'm telling you—"

Romario cut him off right there with something about scheduling an appointment with a psychiatrist and demanding that Dino didn't leave the condo again. He hung up without further ado and left Dino staring blankly at his cell phone and wondering what the hell just happened.

He wasn't exactly surprised that Romario didn't believe him, but really, a psychiatrist? Wasn't that going a little overboard?

A nasty voice spoke up in the back of his mind, muttering something about how generally speaking, people who were hallucinating didn't usually realize it, but Dino quickly slammed the lid shut on _that_ train of thought.

He wasn't crazy. He absolutely wasn't, and nothing anyone else said or did would convince him otherwise.

Probably, anyway.

All he needed was proof that the things he saw actually existed. It was a pity that he had no idea how to go about finding anything like that.

Fuck it, Dino thought, heading into Romario's kitchen and digging through the fridge for something to eat. He didn't want to think about any of that crap anyway.

* * *

The information was delivered in the old-fashioned way, something Hibari hadn't seen in roughly one hundred years. It was a testament to whatever Shamal's true age was, he decided as he accepted the packet, that the old bastard still used doves for inter-realm deliveries.

The bird hovered around Hibari expectantly, refusing to leave his side until he got to his feet and stole a sandwich from a boy who was running by. He ripped off a chunk of the bread and held it out for the bird to snatch up. Then he tossed the sandwich into a nearby waste bin, ignoring the boy's startled cries as his meal disappeared into thin air.

Humans, he thought with disgust, tearing the packet open.

It was the same park, the one Shamal insisted they used for their first meeting. The place wasn't half-bad, though Hibari was considerably less fond of it at high noon. The grassy area was teeming with human activity, bustling and noisy and filthy enough to make Hibari want to retch at the sight of it all. Mankind was nothing to be impressed about.

The bird landed on his shoulder as though to read along with him. Hibari tolerated its presence, choosing to pull out the first paper rather than mind the bird. It was a letter.

_Idiot punk_, the opening read. Hibari scowled down at it.

_Idiot punk,_

_Here's everything that exists about the you-know-what. I don't know anything else, and I don't want to know. Feel free to leave me out of the loop._

_S._

_PS: You need to get laid. I can recommend a good place, if you're interested._

"Disgusting bastard," Hibari muttered. Shamal was lucky he'd hidden himself in the other realm. If he was in arm's reach, Hibari would have ripped him limb from limb and fed his foul remains to the hell hounds that idiot collection agent was so fond of keeping.

Crushing the letter in his hand, Hibari pulled out the rest. The packet of papers wasn't thick, comprised of maybe three pages of official documentation, all signed off by the archangel Reborn—and oddly enough Tsunayoshi, that strange boy who guarded the rarely-used gate that was the only direct path from Heaven to Hell.

The first page consisted of six months' worth of changes from the Guide Book, all stating the different ways Rokudo Mukuro, aged 22, was meant to have died but didn't. The angel in charge of his case was… Hibari scanned the document no less than ten times, but where the angel's name should have been mentioned there was only a thick black censor bar. It wasn't until the third and final page that he realized why.

The third page was a dismissal form. It was the sort of thing rookies were threatened with but that really only happened once every few centuries. When an angel repeatedly failed over a long course of time, the archangels would gather and hold a trial. If it was determined that negligence played a role, the angel would be dismissed.

It wasn't a kind practice. When a soul passed through to the other realm from the mortal realm and was selected as any kind of divine attendant, it was the only afterlife they would ever know. To be dismissed was to cease existing altogether.

As Reborn often said, Heaven was only kind to deceased souls, not its up-keepers.

The dismissal form was short, straight and to the point. The angel's name wasn't mentioned a single time, but there were several blank spaces where Hibari imagined the name should have gone. That it was simply not there, not just censored, was the final proof that the angel had, indeed, been fully erased from existence.

Hibari's stomach bottomed out. If it had happened once in such similar circumstances, what would prevent it from happening again?

It was time he took matters into his own hands.

According to Shamal, Mukuro had absorbed spiritual energy due to the lengthy period he spent in the near-death state, which eventually led to his attaining divine abilities—including the ability to see things from the other realm. If Hibari wasn't mistaken, Dino Cavallone already had that ability, and only, what, two weeks and two days had passed?

After six months, Mukuro must have turned into some kind of a monster. No wonder everyone thought him so twisted.

He couldn't let that happen to Cavallone—or, more importantly, to himself.

Angels rarely intervened so directly in their target's life, but Hibari had had quite enough of Dino Cavallone and his odd streak of luck. He was past the point of listening to the Guide Book.

The Book told him in no uncertain terms that Dino Cavallone, age 27, was going to die by choking to death at roughly seven in the evening. At a quarter before six, Hibari crushed the lock on the door to the condo Cavallone was staying in and stepped inside.

He would kill the idiot with own two hands, and he'd enjoy every last second of it.

* * *

Romario called around three in the afternoon to say he'd be home late, which meant _don't bother waiting up for me, I'll be home well after midnight trying to get things in order because the boss is having a mental breakdown_. Dino took him at his word and, feeling guilt settle heavily on his shoulders, decided to spend the evening eating all the ice cream in Romario's freezer and watching cartoons.

The trouble was, he decided during the commercial break for some cartoon that featured a boy and a dog who were apparently both suffering from LSD flashbacks, he honestly didn't believe there was anything wrong with him. The more he thought about it, the more sure he felt. Okay, so he was seeing people with wings and tails, and yes, the winged guy did seem to hate him a whole lot, but that didn't necessarily mean he was suffering from some psychotic breakdown or whatever. He was just—hell, he didn't know what was going on, and there was just no way to pretend he did. There was nothing he could do to explain himself out of the corner he'd been backed into. His life was shifting in an unknown direction, and nothing Dino did or said would stop it.

The commercial break ended, the boy and the dog continued having drug-induced flashbacks, and in the final five minutes, Dino heard a sound that made every hair on his body stand on end, the room growing colder and colder in a matter of seconds as a strange thought floated through his mind, _I wonder if this is actually what dying feels like?_

The door, that's what it was. He snapped out of the terrified reverie just in time to realize that someone was breaking and entering into Romario's house. Apparently, the two-day streak of not having any attempts on his life was over.

Would this be it? Maybe it was a burglar, and they'd shoot him square between the eyes and take everything valuable Romario had. His cell phone was in the kitchen and his legs were paralyzed, seized as he was by fear. There was nothing he could do.

Footsteps, heavy and unyielding, padded through the entryway, through the kitchen, and toward the sitting room. Dino didn't bother to turn off the television. He just climbed to his feet, legs trembling, and turned to look at the doorway.

Framed against the light pouring into the dimly lit sitting room from the kitchen, the winged man stared back at him.


End file.
